Last modified October 12, 2023
When it comes to SEO, one of the criteria that is very important is the choice of your host. However, it is unfortunately often something often neglected among webmasters. In this article, we will see how your host influences the ranking of your site in search engines and how to choose a quality web host.
Why your hosting can impact your SEO
Server downtime
Downtime not only affects the overall performance of a website but also its ranking in search engine results pages. Let’s look at this practically.
When a website goes down unexpectedly, it no longer appears on search engines. Finally, your site is visited daily by Google robots. If crawlers no longer find your site, this will have the effect of degrading the site’s SEO. In addition, the bounce rate of this site will also be impacted, which will influence the authority of the site in a negative way.
To avoid downtime and obtain maximum uptime for your website, you should opt for the best host available for your website and use monitoring tools.
Page loading time
The second factor to take into account when testing a host is the loading time of a website. If a website is slow and takes a long time to load, this will directly impact your visits.
Matt Cutts, the former head of Google’s Webspam team, also highlighted the effect of page load time on website performance.
A faster website is a good thing for everyone, but especially for users. Many examples have shown that accelerating user experience leads to increased usage. So the speed of your website is not only something that can affect your search engine rankings, it is also something that is beneficial to your user experience.
It is universally accepted that if a website takes more than two seconds to load, visitors are more likely to move on to the next possible option. The loading time of a website’s pages is therefore a very sensitive factor for its reputation.
Rental of hosting servers
Server location plays a vital role in providing your website visitors with a fast browsing experience. The proximity of the server to the target audience helps redirect the audience to your site more quickly.
Each website is assigned an IP address which is directly linked to the geographic location of your website. Choosing a local host will make it easy to target the local audience and ultimately improve your site’s ranking in local search engines.
However, server location also plays a role in the loading time of web pages. To remedy this, it is possible to opt for a CDN which improves the performance of your websites across the globe.
The criteria for choosing a web host vary depending on the type of site you manage and the volume of traffic you receive. There is no perfect hosting choice for every type of website.
For example, if you have a small site that doesn’t receive a lot of traffic, then a shared host will be sufficient to support your site.
However, if you receive hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, using shared hosting will likely have a negative impact on your site’s performance and ranking. In this case, the best solution is to switch to VPS, cloud or dedicated server hosting.
Several criteria can be used to compare different hosts. We can cite the different offers offered, technical performance, ease of use, price and even customer service. Here are some questions to ask yourself before choosing your supplier:
- Does the host have a high level of performance?
- Does your host have an automated backup system or use a third-party plugin?
- Do you have the option to install or purchase an SSL certificate for your site?
- Does your host guarantee high uptime for your site?
- Is there any data or backup guarantee?
- Can you choose your data center location?
- Does your hosting include a built-in or third-party CDN?
Some SEO optimization tips for your host
Set up geotargeting
Geotargeting is a great feature of the Google Search Console tool. This tool allows you to target the right audience on a global scale, regardless of the location of your server.
If your website has a local domain like (.fr, .be, .ch), you don’t need to worry about targeting the relevant audience as they are likely to get it automatically. On the other hand, if your domain is global like (.com), you must identify the country you are targeting in the search console.
If you don’t set the target country in Search Console, Google will track the IP address to identify the country of the website which may become a problem later. Using Search Console optionally allows a global domain to target a specific country.
Set up an SSL certificate
Trust is huge online. If your site doesn’t look trustworthy, then Google won’t trust you and you will struggle to rank. The same goes for your visitors. If your visitors don’t trust you, they probably won’t buy your products and services.
An easy way to improve your trust is to install an SSL certificate on your site. An SSL certificate will encrypt the connection between your server and your user’s web browser. This will enable the secure exchange of personal information. But in addition to reassuring your visitors, an SSL certificate will also help your site improve its ranking. Since 2014, Google has recognized SSL certificates as a ranking factor.
Passionate about the web and entrepreneurship, I founded Digitiz in 2016. My goal is to pass on my experience to you and to be able to save you time in choosing your tools.
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